Ashley is one of my favourite beauty vloggers. She often focuses on natural or green products and pretty much seems like the nicest person ever. Her instagram often features beautiful things arranged in a beautiful way.

Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart. A beautiful graphic novel that tells the story of the Bagnolds – mother Sue and teenage son Daniel – during an uneventful summer. Sue, a library assistant with a tragic past, is desperate to find a way to connect to the increasingly apathetic Daniel whose interests lie in heavy metal music and his loser friend, Ky. Quietly heartbreaking, this story made me look back regretfully on my selfish teenage years and want to call my mother. Ten black hoodies out of ten.

For more reviews, or for a peek into my Moroccan adventures, follow me on instagram @toby_ann.

Lately, I’ve been instagramming all the books I read. Is it redundant to cross-post the same thing on two different social media platforms? Meh.

It’s a strange thing to re-read a book you fell in love with years ago. When my MA advisor recommended Lorrie Moore’s first collection of short stories, I had never heard of the author and dove in, finally discovering a writer whose voice was so close to what I hoped to do with my own. On re-read, it fell short of my memory. Sure, “How to Be an Other Woman” is probably one of my favourite short stories ever, and Moore’s wit and wordplay still makes me smile, and often there are sentences that are so perfect that I have to stop, pause, and re-read them. But, this isn’t the same book I fell in love with. It’s still a wonderful collection of often second-person stories offering cheeky advice on being a mistress, talking to your mother, and becoming a writer, but I don’t think Moore really hit her stride until her follow-up, Birds of America, which is probably my favourite book of short stories ever. Eight and a half slightly off-kilter thirtysomethings out of ten.

More photos from the April photo challenge I’m engaged in. Days 12 (stairs), 13 (something you found), 14 (how you feel today), 15 (sunset), 16 (flower), and 17 (something you don’t like). Days 13 to 17 were taken on our recent trip to London to find an apartment so are a little uninspired from the ever present Bible in the bedside table of hotels (13), feeling exhausted and anxious after a day of looking at places (14), the sunset as seen from the hotel (15), bad hotel art (16), and waiting in the London airport (17).

I was recently gifted an iPad and have really been enjoying taking pictures with it. I got myself some photo aps and am actually excited about taking pictures again. I decided to participate in Fat Mum Slim’s April photo challenge in which you take a photo each day inspired by a specific category. These are my first five: 1) reflection, 2) colour, 3) mail, 4) someone who makes you happy, and 5) tiny.